Republican Party candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy of Ohio. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Republican candidate for Ohio governor Vivek Ramaswamy continues to push for closing public colleges and universities if he believes they are “low quality,” he said Tuesday night.
Over the past decade, admissions to public universities in Ohio have declined by 14%.
Census data shows Ohio’s population is aging and a growing number of students are dropping out of college due to high tuition and student loan debt.
Some Republicans say college isn’t always necessary.
“The value of a degree is going down,” Ramaswamy said at the Turning Point USA event at Ohio State.
Students who have been protesting outside the Statehouse for years point to controversial recent legislation that has changed the higher education system. Ohio Senate Bill 1 forced universities to eliminate DEI programs and reduce the number of low-enrollment majors. There are currently threats to defund universities that do not align with the GOP idea of compliance.
“What’s going on here might not interest the best and brightest,” OSU senior Brielle Shorter said.
Whatever the cause, Ramaswamy thinks he knows the solution.
“We have too many of them,” the Republican said in a video posted to his Threads account. “They need to be consolidated.”
In an opinion piece he wrote for The Columbus’s shipmentRamaswamy encouraged the closure of what he called struggling universities. He mentioned that Cleveland State, the University of Akron, Kent State University and Central State University all face previous challenges.
On Tuesday, he doubled down on that idea.
“I don’t think you should fund crappy universities,” Ramaswamy said to a student asking a question.
Colleges should not duplicate themselves, he said, and the strongest programs should survive.
“Let them excel in a few areas and really lower their tuition in the process,” he continued.
A school that has the highest ratings in nursing doesn’t necessarily have the best “philosophy program,” he said.
He stated that Ohio State should be the premier university.
OSU professor Dr. Pranav Jani said this proposal would not only hurt education but also hurt the economy in college towns.
“It’s an attack on teaching staff, an attack on students, an attack on the idea of education as a higher good,” Jani said.
Removing universities from urban centers may make studies a more challenging proposition for students commuting to work, the professor added.
“We need to find a way to give them access to it, and not close ourselves off to the argument that they are ineffective, when that inefficiency is partly due to conditions created by politicians,” he said.
David Pepper, Democratic nominee for Gov. Amy Acton, said it shows how out of touch Ramaswamy has been with everyday Ohioans, pointing out that the Republican came up with the idea of cutting college funding to support pay for an overall income tax cut.
Ramaswamy, v Threads video in which the issue of university consolidation was discussed, talking about reducing income tax.
“A tax credit that helps everyone at the top and students, especially from poor communities, Vivek Ramaswamy says: ‘Get in your car, pay for your room and get in hundreds of miles away or I’ll deprive you of your local opportunity to get a degree,’” Pepper said.
Ramaswamy argued that his plan would support protect taxpayer dollars.
“Give graduates bang for their buck,” he said.
WEWS reached out to CSU, UA, KSU and Central State.
Cleveland State President Dr. Laura Bloomberg said consolidation cannot be the only option.
“We must respect the identity of our public universities, which were created for a specific purpose to meet the needs of their region,” Bloomberg said. “All options need to be discussed – there are many ways of thinking about programs and strategic partnerships that are far from being consolidated and that will achieve the goals of being more agile and efficient higher education institutions.”
Bloomberg further added that the university “welcomes the opportunity to meet with any candidate for governor to show them our campus and discuss the transformational impact we are having on our students and the region.”
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This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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